The Apocrypha Series One: Folklore (1 of 6)
by The Neon Seal
Summary: Across the gulf of void, in a universe not so different from our own, a young Time Lady by the name of Clara Oswald has left the Academy to leave her own mark on the stars and the life of one young lass from a sleepy Scottish village will never be the same again. Can Clara get to the bottom of the deadly manifestations, and will she ever measure up to her mentor's footsteps?
1. As Fate Would Have It

THE APOCRYPHA

Story One:

FOLKLORE

By Paul Whittaker

 _Punishment duty. That's what this is, and I'm not afraid to voice my protest. After all, the High Council and General clearly have little interest in this undertaking I have been given. An undertaking that will only be kept as some dusty tome within the bowls of the library or consigned to the limitless depths of the Matrix._

 _If you have stumbled across this work by any unfortunate chance however then I am pleased for various reasons–one being the likely intervention of our better cousins–and feel you may be at a loss as to what I am prattling on about._

 _I, Second Junior Scribe Athenia Astravaliana, were directly involved in the search for a certain time-extracted Clara Oswald. An endeavour, I might add, that was wholly disastrous–although I am not sure in what way as I seem to be missing all the memories pertaining to events. As such, I have been transferred to the lower levels of the Scribe's Halls for my 'reassignment'._

 _Down here, rogue elements akin to the Doctor are monitored or documented–of which there aren't many. To that end, our remit is extended to include other dimensions and universes, and in a particular twist of cruelty I am tasked with documenting the exploits of Ms Oswald's parallel cousin in the nearest divergent realm to our own–listed by the Doctor as 'Pete's World.'_

 _Of all events that have transpired, they are near identical to our own, up to a point. The Clara Oswald of this reality is now, in fact, a Time Lady. Gifted as such for her services to the people of Gallifrey and the universe at large by a Time Lord society that believes that the best way of preventing the next Time War is to actually be helpful and get other races to like them–right now I really do wish that you were reading this, General._

 _I have been given an 'assignment' however, and as an act of defiance I will certainly fulfil it to the best of my abilities in a–mostly–impartial manner._

 _This account of things that were, but not, shall be called 'The Apocrypha,' and it begins not long after the young Time Lady of interest has left the Academy. My only wish is that this information be of some value to you, the reader, and that your intentions be benevolent..._

Part 1: As Fate Would Have It...

SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS, 2016

The pine marten poked her head from the hedge and sniffed the air. She had visited this place many times before, as had her parents and their parents before them, but that was no reason to get careless; to get careless was to get dead.

She gingerly put her paw forward, had another sniff, and when she was entirely convinced there was no danger her sleek body emerged from the undergrowth. The marten trotted across the garden, past the vegetable patch and across the lawn to the pedestal that rose from the ground.

'Can you see her?' Aylish Bruce asked as she watched from her bedroom window.

'Yeah,' Darcy, her little sister whispered.

The funny little mammal climbed the post and proceeded to scoff the treat left for it, blissfully unaware of the higher creatures that watched from afar.

'Martens love jam sandwiches…' Aylish said.

When the marten was done, it leapt from the feeding table and lolloped back to the forest.

Aylish turned to her sister and smiled. 'Stargazing?'

Darcy cheered in reply. Her bedtime should have been hours ago, but her sister was awesome like that.

'Well, get your hat,' Darcy's protector added. 'Don't want to catch a cold do you?'

* * *

Aylish peered through her telescope, carefully adjusting the dials on the tripod. 'That should…' With a final, almost infinitesimal twitch of her fingers the object centred. '…Do it…' The budding astronomer stepped away from the instrument and gestured to it. 'The Andromeda Galaxy.'

Darcy peered through the eye piece. 'Wow!' she instantly exclaimed.

'It's two point three million light years away,' Aylish explained. 'That's how long it took for the image to reach us. You're seeing back through time to a place before anybody existed.'

Darcy looked excited for a moment, but she then turned to her sister with terror in her eyes.

'What's the matter sweetie?' she asked and wrapped her arms around the trembling girl.

'Is that where the Cybermen came from?' her charge whimpered.

'A don't know…' Aylish mumbled as the images flooded her mind. The town had been lucky the second time it happened–but the news footage, the stories, the sky… they were as sharp as ever.

'Are they coming back?'

Aylish looked up at the celestial blanket and a shooting star leapt across the timeless panorama. What was she supposed to say?

* * *

' _Good morning Port Gloam,_ ' the disk jockey sang from the alarm clock radio and Aylish's eyes snapped open. ' _It's another glorious July morning here on the edge of nowhere and it's the first day of the summer holidays, so if you are a former inmate of PG Primary or Woodvale High it's time to go wild!_ '

As her world came into focus, Aylish read the time.

'7:02am.'

'Don't you ever sleep Jake?' she groaned and rolled over.

Darcy stood there wearing her most stern expression and cuddling her teddy bear. 'I want pancakes,' she demanded.

Aylish growled with frustration and threw one of her pillows at her.

' _There was another death late last night,_ ' Jake reported with some attempt at professionalism while Aylish finished flipping pancakes. She heard small footfalls on the stairs and quickly changed the station to a static swamped _Radio A &B_.

'What's wrong with the station?' Darcy asked as she clambered onto the counter stool.

'Still messed up,' Aylish said as she served up.

'What about Jake's station?' the wee lass enquired as she reached for the syrup.

'The same,' her big sister lied as she dipped into the jam.

The deaths... The first had been three nights ago, and the authorities were far from forthcoming on details, but everybody in the Ring and Sword swore they saw a shambling corpse approach old-man MacMorrow right before he dropped dead–thankfully she had a week off. Last night it had been O'Sullivan and a banshee according her inconsolable husband. Now this new dose of misery...

There was a new strain of weird infecting Port Gloam, and Aylish wanted her little sister keeping as far from it as possible.

'Anyway, have you got everything packed?' she added, clapping her hands together sharply.

The little girl nodded.

''Cos you know I'm not hoofing it all the way here, then down to Mina's again because you forgot socks.'

'I packed everything,' Darcy insisted.

'And stay out of Mr. O'Neill's strawberry patch this time.'

The little imp grinned mischievously.

'I mean it,' Aylish insisted. 'Or no camping at weekend.'

Darcy pouted and Aylish frowned.

'Och, gimme some credit,' the carer retorted. 'I practically invented that look!'

* * *

They waited by the door as the red people carrier crawled up the gravel path beside the house. 'Daddy's coming home tomorrow,' Darcy noted brightly, and her big sister smiled down at her. Aylish then ruffled Darcy's long white hair–the same unusual colour as her own–with mischievous intent and Darcy pulled a sulky face before sticking her tongue out in reply.

'Hey, you two!' Mrs Green greeted as she stepped from the car. 'How could somebody so small need so much stuff?!' she then remarked as Darcy attempted to skip over with a sizeable hold-all in hand.

'Wish I had so much stuff!' Aylish chuckled as she caught her up and took the weight of the bag. 'I've got it sweetie,' she added before carrying it the rest of the way and throwing it onto the back seat.

Darcy clambered in beside and fastened her seat belt. 'Bye, Aylish,' she chirped.

'See you tomorrow cheeky chops,' Aylish said with a big grin and shut the door.

'Have you heard?' Mrs Green asked once the child was out of earshot.

'There's been another death...'

'Some East-European backpacker walking to the Ring and Sword.'

'Oh no!' Aylish gasped, her hand to her mouth in all too-real empathy.

Mrs Green nodded gravely. 'They heard the screams inside the pub but they were having a time with goblins tearing the place up!'

'Goblins? Really?'

'So George said. Throwing glasses, turning over tables–one pushed Jeremy off his stool! Of course, Helen was having a fit. She went after the lot of them with the broom, but they weren't bothered. Anyway, by the time they vanished, the girl was dead and her friends were with her. They claimed they saw this really pale girl with red hair and claws attack her.'

'Wait... You mean, like a Vampire?' Aylish exclaimed, her head positively spinning from the mostly unbelievable news.

'You'd know better then me. The thing is, George said there wasn't a single mark on the body that he could see. So how'd she die?'

All Aylish could do was shrug.

'You know what I think? Government conspiracy. Just like the Cybermen. I haven't let my Mina drink any tap water since this all started.'

'You'll keep an eye on Darcy though, right?' Aylish enquired, glancing to the car.

'Aye, don't worry your head!' Mrs Green laughed. 'We've got plenty of stuff for the girls to do at home, and we don't live near the pub. That seems to be where all the trouble is. Still though, it can't go on, can it?'

Aylish shrugged again. 'It'll get sorted soon, I suppose,' she added with a half smile.

'Has to, doesn't it?' Mrs Green agreed. 'Unless they move the lot of us!'

Aylish just nodded along with the woman. Such a thing was unthinkable on her part.

'Anyway. I better get going before wee Darcy gets too bored.'

'I think you better had,' Aylish said. She stooped down and tapped on the window before waving to the little girl inside. Darcy waved back.

* * *

As soon as they'd gone, Aylish nipped back inside, packed some lunch, and headed out into the wilderness.

The quickest way to The Lady's Reach was through town, but nowhere did she feel as alive as she did in the heart of Sidh Dubh forest. It was as if she were anchored to the earth–rooted like one of the many trees that surrounded and protected her. Indeed, she often felt that if she ever spoke to the trees they might reply in a language only she could truly understand. The raw, terrible and joyful pulse of all the lonely wild places was her own, and nowhere did this connection feel as strong as it did when she was in the vicinity of Port Gloam's famous Faery Ring.

The ancient ring of toadstools marked the heart of a great clearing. By an exact spacing of a meter, the seemingly perfect circle of fungi was interspersed by small and equally ancient standing stones, each scrawled with Gaelic script–or so Aylish presumed as she couldn't read Gaelic and she couldn't read these glyphs.

Aylish looked briefly to the dour face of Shilya's Keep–an old, old castle that loomed over the dell from its mountain-side throne. Its name a mystery even to the experts, the castle had apparently featured quite prominently in her twisting family tree, but had left their hands generations before and was now maintained by the National Trust. She'd been on school trips of course... and hated the place...

She shuddered, the icy fingers of foreboding playing her spine like a harp string. The scent of greenery in bloom warmed her heart however, and the songs upon the wind were a balm for her soul.

Aylish soon reached the main road into Port Gloam and was met with a seemingly endless procession of military vehicles. From jeeps and trucks to surveillance vans, they came in many varied forms, but were united under the name of UNIT. The lass ducked out of view and waited till the almost incessant grumble of tires faded from hearing, then raced on across the thoroughfare and through the wood beyond.

* * *

The military were absent when she reached her destination, and relief numbed tortured legs. With an eye over her shoulder, she stole into the cave she'd discovered as a child and headed down through the arm of rock that protruded into the Sound of Mull.

'Good day, my dear,' an instantly recognisable voice rumbled from deep below.

'Hello, old man,' she replied to the dark with a smile as she stumbled down time and tide carved steps. 'What have you been up to?'

'Dreaming,' the voice replied. 'Dreaming of stars, of worlds unseen, and of your next visit. Tell me child, have they arrived?'

'Just now,' Aylish said.

'Then he will soon be here,' her life-long friend stated, filling her with both hope and sorrow. 'Would you like a game of chess?'

'How about Monopoly?' she asked as she neared the source of conversation.

'Even better!' the voice boomed. 'Can I be the shoe?'

* * *

It was a clear night as Aylish sat before her telescope with Thermos and radio at her side. She tugged her beanie down snugly and savoured the comfort of her trusty purple hoodie. Despite being a mid summer nights eve, there was a bitter wind blowing in from the Atlantic.

 _'So head down to Dermot's Bate and Tackle today for a discount on all your fishing needs,_ ' Jake read. _'Here's Chvrches with 'Get Away'..._ '

'Tune,' she muttered as she peered through the eye piece and mumbled along with the timeless tale of two people battling to hold on to each other against all the odds.

Just as the song reached its thumping-yet-heartaching crescendo the radio gave in to the surrounding static.

'No, no, no!' the girl protested as she fiddled with the dial, and that's when she heard the groaning of powerful engines–followed by an almighty crash.

Aylish gasped and grabbed her torch. The unearthly sounds had come from the driveway down the side of the house, and as she crept toward the corner, the resident Pine Marten shot past in the opposite direction with a torn bag of strawberry bonbons in her mouth.

Summoning her courage, Aylish turned the bend to find a second shed sitting squarely in her vegetable patch.

''Take some sweets for the locals,' he said!' a young woman grumbled as she struggled through the bed of foliage. ''Works every time' he said!'

'Scuse me?' Aylish questioned and flashed the torch on her in what she hoped was a confrontational fashion.

'Oh, am I in Scotland?' the visitor exclaimed with excitement as she span round and regarded Aylish with curious eyes.

With a round face, bonny cheeks and shoulder length hair of deep brown, the small trespasser was certainly beguiling, if not a bit strange. Aylish's attention flickered to her clothes for a second despite her understandable surprise. Leather jacket, white shirt, a jauntily loose tie, tartan skirt and black tights... Definitely not a rambler!

'What are you–' Aylish started but the stranger shushed her.

'Lemme just try something...' the girl said with an almost musical Lancashire lilt before licking the end of her finger and holding it up to the breeze. 'We're near Mull,' she then stated with some authority.

Aylish nodded.

The girl looked up at the stars. 'Two thousand and sixteen...'

Aylish nodded again.

'A thursday!'

Aylish shook her head. 'Wednesday.'

'Oh well,' the trespasser dismissed with a shrug and buckets of cheer. 'Two out of three isn't bad...'

'You mean you didn't know when or where you were when you showed up in your shed?' Aylish asked and considered how insane it would have sounded if not for everything else in her life.

'I didn't mean to end up here,' the visitor said defensively, communicating with her hands as much as her mouth. 'I put the coordinates in for nineteenth century London and there wasn't anything else to do so I thought I'd have a power nap and, well... I ended up here some how. Probably just a hiccup in the Helmic Orientators.'

'Power nap?' was Aylish's first question out of all that.

'Yeah,' the visitor said matter-of-factly. 'There's this guy I know. _So_ much better at it. you could be talking to him and you'd never know that–'

The girl's eyes widened in a way that didn't seem quite possible as a feral growl filled the air. Aylish assumed that the trespasser's reaction was one of fear as she turned around to be confronted by the sight of a nine-foot werewolf sauntering up the drive toward her–but as I record these words she isn't quite sure if it was 'the thrill' instead.

'Move!' the visitor whispered as she grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her into the shed.

* * *

The cavernous space with its towering central column, its outer walkway and lower level, the lights, the banks of controls, the clicking and spinning glyphs above: it was all so much to take in.

'You're not human, are you?' Aylish breathed.

'What gave you that impression?' the girl chipped as she strolled up to the console.

Aylish didn't answer. But then, 'What about the werewolf?' She turned and nervously stared the double doors down.

'Don't worry,' the girl said. The soft sincerity evident in her voice took Aylish off guard considering the stranger's prior attitude, and the reluctant passenger found the trespasser smiling warmly from across the centre. 'Not much can get in here... Hold on,' she added and frowned at the nearest of the two monitors. 'That's interesting.'

'What is?' Aylish dared ask as she nervously toyed with one of the pure white bunches protruding from beneath her dark blue beanie.

'You are...' the girl said, stopping her work and staring squarely at her.

Aylish froze.

'It ceased to exist as soon as you entered the Tardis.'

'It's not just me,' Aylish then started in her own defence. 'It's been happening around town for the last four nights now.' Just never this far from the Ring and Sword...

Aylish suddenly and terrifyingly couldn't shake the feeling that Darcy was also threatened. She had long learned to trust this gut intuition when others might scoff or dismiss. Too many times had she correctly sensed her little sister's peril, and when her mother had...

'Please,' Aylish begged while trying not to sound too desperate, 'I always know when my sister is in danger and I'm feeling it now...'

'Where is she?' the stranger asked, just like that, without scorn or question–the moment when Aylish began to trust.

'I'm the Teacher,' the mysterious girl added with furtive wistfulness as she entered the given location.

'Teacher who?' Aylish asked as she eyed the many surrounding bookcases, brimming with an embarrassment of knowledge and literary treasures.

'Just the Teacher,' the Teacher smiled.

'I'm Aylish,' our wayward lass replied with a little hesitation. 'Aylish Bruce.'

'Well, you'd better hold on, Aylish. These short hops aren't all that simple,' the Teacher said and threw the lever with the limitless glow of excitement in her eyes.


	2. Duty of Care

Part 2: Duty of Care

They found three small girls gorping at them in amazement as they emerged from Mina's wardrobe, and the small furry creature bouncing on the bed halted.

'Is that a brownie?' Aylish started as she gave the wardrobe she'd just left a double-take.

'Apparently,' the Teacher said in concentration as she produced a long, thin object from her pocket and waved it at the hysterical little monster. The device warbled sharply and its blue, crystalline tip shone brightly as she followed an invisible trail straight to Darcy.

'UH OH!' the brownie exclaimed and disappeared in a puff of cunning.

Darcy looked sulkily at the stranger for chasing her new friend away as she started waving the wand in the air.

'Lost it,' she grumbled and tucked the device back into her jacket pocket. 'You say this happened to a few people?'

Aylish nodded.

'Someone is inducing mental projections,' the Teacher said, as much to herself as anybody else. 'The most vivid I've ever seen.'

'But, brownies are friendly...' Aylish remarked.

'The older you get the scarier your dreams,' the Teacher hazarded aloud. 'But why would anybody want to? Projections of this intensity have a chance of scaring the subject to death and are used for defence or...' her expression darkened, 'torture...'

'Can you find the source?'

The Teacher shook her head. 'Not with the sonic. I could-'

'There's military in town,' Aylish interrupted in a bid to prove helpful. 'They might have some stuff if your time-ship can't. Call themselves UNIT.'

'The Tardis could,' the Teacher continued. 'If I can catch a broadcast. But UNIT complicate things. They probably have technology for tracing anything I do too, and I'd rather avoid them right now... Anyway!' She folded her arms defensively. 'How do you know the Tardis can travel in time?' This local lass certainly seemed to be taking everything in her stride. Not once had she mentioned her home being bigger on the inside–which was a little disappointing.

Aylish gave her a positively glowing smile. 'I know someone who's been expecting you, or... someone like you. I really think he could help us...'

'He?' the Teacher replied with clear curiosity–while trying not to get her hopes up.

With that she gave the children a happy little wave and climbed back into the wardrobe.

'Behave,' Aylish sternly told her sister with a point–that was followed by a wink and a grin–then went after the mysterious stranger.

* * *

The dripping solitude of a subterranean lake was suddenly shattered by the wheeze of the Tardis' continuum-bending engines as it came into being on the sunken shore, a pulsing light chasing the shadows away. With no obvious disguise to choose from, the time capsule got a bit confused, flashed through half a dozen different forms, then decided to check what its parallel sisters were doing.

The Teacher was rather taken aback when she stepped out of the staff door of an American diner.

'I like it,' Aylish stated.

'You know,' the Teacher said, cocking her head to one side with an equally lop-sided smile, 'I do too. Might set it as the default.'

The stranger then followed her to the edge where dark water hid unexplored depths. 'So... what now?' she asked as she stared long into the abyss and her reflection beyond.

'We wait,' Aylish replied, tucking her hands into her hoodie pouch. 'He knows we're here.'

Out toward the centre of the pool the waters parted, shimmering with the halogen light that spilled from the diner. A scaly maw breached, followed swiftly by neck, shoulders, arms and wings. The Teacher hopped back from the resulting surf in a bid to save her shoes and when she looked up again she found the awe that she travelled for. Where once there had been empty cavern, there now sat a vast and majestic dragon, sparkling with every imaginable shade of blue.

'You're one of the Ancients of Volkheim,' the Teacher gasped. 'One of The Endless Scale.'

'And your knowledge serves you well, little one,' the dragon boomed with a voice like thunder and strode near enough for her to feel the hot breath from his nostrils. 'But I was expecting someone much... older... You would be the other one, wouldn't you? You would be...'

'Don't say it,' the Teacher quietly beseeched, feeling very small and very powerless.

'Clara Oswald...'

'There goes the mystery,' Clara grumbled.

'You told me it was just _'The Teacher_ ',' Aylish complained.

'Look,' Clara sighed, 'I was a teacher, and presentation is everything.' Her shoulders sank as she then realised that she could never reclaim any perceived theatricality.

The dragon broke into a gruff chuckle that quickly became a ceiling crumbling cough. 'I am Keldray,' he then choked.

'You don't sound well,' Clara noted.

He drew close to Aylish and she hugged his snout with a care that the Time Lady knew all too well.

'He's dying,' Aylish sniffed as she clung to her dragon. Indeed, his golden eyes looked haggard and his scales only possessed a fraction of their multifaceted lustre.

'But the Ancients of Volkheim are counted among the immortals. How can you be dying?'

'Only in our own habitat are we untouched by time,' he replied as Aylish reluctantly let go. 'And I have not seen home in a long, long time...'

'You will help him?' Aylish enquired, afire with hope and agony.

'I will,' Clara stated, taking a step forward. 'Oh, you have my word that I will.'

'But first you must cure what ills this town,' Keldray added.

'Yes,' the Time Lady said.

'And I will help you.'

The dragon disappeared into the depths for several minuets and returned with a strange curio.

'I am versed in the sciences of nature and mind, and I know this villain plunders my Aylish's people for their emotions,' he revealed. 'Each night I feel the reaping of such powerful energy, but to where and what for I do not know.' He then dropped a meter long metal rod at Clara's feet, one end spiked and one end capped with a dish-shaped emitter. 'This is the science of machines. The science of humans...'

Clara quickly broke the seal of the emitter and began analysing the inner workings with her sonic screwdriver.

'I found it on the sea bed in a long line with many others. I only took the one as to lose one is unfortunate, but to lose two is suspect.'

'It's a fifty-first century jammer,' Clara said–although that was an intelligent guess. 'Part of an electronic counter measure,' she added with the growing excitement of recognition. 'I take it you can't get any radio or TV...'

'Or mobile signal. Not for the last few days–except for Jake's... The, err... local station!' Aylish hurriedly replied as she watched the cogs turn.

'A Zero Ring,' Clara named. 'Now that narrows the location down...'

'A Zero Ring?' Aylish pressed.

'Creates an all encompassing bubble of multi-spectral frequency-'

Aylish shot her a glance that said, 'English, please.'

Clara rolled her eyes as she remembered a part of her old life that she sorely missed. 'It blocks out all incoming and outgoing communication over a desired area. We covered it in the forty second term of Holistic Electronics. Useful for sieges, hiding a rebel base, or if you _really_ don't want to deal with interference,' she then rabbited. 'We're dealing with the third.'

'How can you be so sure?' Aylish questioned with a healthy dose of suspicion. Clara had said it with such self-assuredness that it seemed she was willing to stake this higher, alien reputation on it.

'The emotions, my child,' Keldray said softly. 'A reaper does not burn his harvest.'

'And I've been in more than a few bases under siege,' Clara said, her arms folded again.

'So, do you have a plan?' Aylish asked. It sounded like she had a plan.

'I have a plan, yeah,' Clara nodded. 'I always have a plan. Is Jake's station near the local pub by any chance?'

'Just round the back,' Aylish replied.

'I definitely have a plan,' Clara admitted.

'Then I wish to speak with you in private before you leave,' Keldray said to the Time Lady.

'Sure,' she said, placing her hands in her pockets.

There was a flare of protest in Aylish's night-rimmed eyes, but Keldray told her to scoot with a wave of his talon–the first time he'd ever asked her to leave.

'I think I saw some lemonade back in the Tardis if you're thirsty,' Clara happily suggested.

'Kay,' Aylish muttered and headed into the diner, head bowed.

'Well?' Clara asked as she perched on a rock.

'Nature empath,' the dragon said.

'Any empath is rare outside of the psychic races.'

'Aylish is one,' Keldray replied flatly.

Clara, mouth open, turned to the girl sitting at the bar, then returned to the dragon with a frown.

'I have what our mutual friend would call a 'duty of care' toward her,' he continued and Clara's eyes stung. 'She doesn't know, but that duty was also to her mother,' the dragon admitted for the benefit of the Time Lady.

'And that's why you're on earth,' Clara said.

'No!' Keldray objected. 'I ended up here because of a time storm!'

'Please,' retorted Clara's next expression. It takes a liar to know a liar.

'Anyway,' he sighed heavily, 'your taking me home wasn't the real reason I wished for you to visit.'

Clara shook her head, knowing exactly what he was about to say.

'When I am gone, I wish to pass that duty to you...'

'You can't!' she started and rose from her rock. 'I wont! I can't believe that- You know who I am, and I am damn well certain that you know how that story ended!' She angrily shifted her hair to one side and flashed the three zeros tattooed upon the back of her neck–the full stop at the end of her life.

'All the better that you watch over her then,' he replied, ignoring her disbelief and outrage. 'The wise learn from the past.'

Clara threw her hands up and turned away in frustration. A moment later she span on him with a judgemental gaze and accusing finger. 'Yet you are still willing to put her in danger!'

'Aylish will always be in some sort of danger,' Keldray said with much weariness, suggesting that there was more to the favour than he would disclose. 'And I never said I wanted her to travel with you.'

Clara cooled.

'It's just... I don't want her to end up like us,' he admitted.

'Lonely,' Clara added with telling distance as she regarded the missing half of her being.

'So you will?'

Clara ground the hard rock floor with the toe of her shoe and kicked a pebble into the water, making ripples. 'I'll think about it.'

* * *

'Why are we in the pub?' Aylish asked as the front door shut behind her.

'Stacking the odds,' Clara answered with absence of humour as she listened and watched for all gossip about the strange happenings. 'Most of the manifestations have happened in this area, yeah?'

'Aye,' Aylish said with surprise, 'but how could you know?' She certainly didn't remember divulging that detail.

'Small rural town, no major city links... The local pub is probably the centre of the community...'

'Aylish, love!' Helen, the landlady, called from behind her taps.

'And work,' Aylish muttered, having rather been out in the wilds. For 'the cause' and all that though...

'Come to the bar! Who's your friend?'

A dozen soldiers and boffins turned to face them. The place was, understandably, crawling with UNIT–their vehicles were certainly making traffic a nightmare outside–and Clara would have liked to have avoided any further complications or awkward questions, but she was hoping to use her very identity to her advantage in that regard.

Clara elbowed Aylish in the ribs. 'Ow! What?' the lass seethed.

'Oswin,' Clara mumbled like a ventriloquist.

'Oswin!' Aylish replied as they walked up to the bar. 'From...'

'Blackpool,' Clara surreptitiously dictated.

'Blackpool,' Aylish said. 'Really?!'

Clara just laughed and gave one of her most beguiling smiles as she climbed onto a stool. 'Yes. Me and Aylish have been pen friends for years. Since year...'

'Eight,' Aylish added, covering her. 'She's travelling before uni starts and I said she could crash at mine for a few days.' She looked at Clara with a chummy grin. 'I mean, if we're going halfsies on a place we might as well get used to each other!'

'Oh, so you're going to Edinburgh too lass?' Helen asked.

'Yes,' Clara affirmed. 'English literature and creative writing.'

'That's nice dear,' the motherly landlady crooned. 'Will you be round for the weekly quiz?'

'I love pub quizzes,' she revealed.

'We'll be seeing if you can beat Aylish's record in that case. This lass is our own wee genius,' Helen beamed before shuffling off to answer the landline.

Aylish peered sheepishly into the booze marinated woodwork, pale cheeks washing red, while Clara offered her a sideways glance loaded with questionably friendly challenge.

' _You're getting attached..._ ' a small voice within the Time Lady's head taunted. 'No I'm not. Shut up,' Clara responded quite sternly. It was only with noticing Aylish's surprised and slightly upset expression that she realised she'd said it aloud. 'Sorry,' she added, 'just talking... to myself...' and could have died.

'Aylish, love,' Helen called from beside the staff door. 'Your dad for you.'

'Be back in a mo,' Aylish cheeped sweetly to her new-found friend and scuttled off behind the bar.

'Clara?' a familiar voice asked in stereo and the Time Lady twisted to be met by twin girls with tape-repaired, thick-rim glasses, matching cardigans and question marks on their collars.

'Scuse me?' she replied with her most innocent voice and with her most bemused expression while the landlady looked on with suspicion.

'It's us, Clara,' one girl said while the other puffed on an inhaler. 'The Osgoods,' the latter finished and handed the inhaler to the former, both smiling in tandem.

'I'm sorry,' she whole heart(s)edly apologised. 'I think you have me mistaken for somebody else.' Which was true depending on how you looked at it. 'I'm Oswin...'

The twins then gave their own apologies before retreating to a corner table where they could discuss the significance of the presence of what they'd dubbed a 'Clara-shard'. All the while she struggled not to show smug satisfaction at her masterful deception.

'Yeah, dad,' Aylish said, Clara drowning out the crowed to eavesdrop. 'Still no mobile service. TV and radio are down too, but I think it will get sorted soon...' She noticed the Time Lady staring at her and gave a thumbs-up. 'Yeah... Yeah... Love you too, see you soon... Have a safe flight...'

'Can I get you anything, sweet?' old Helen asked as she returned from more forthcoming patrons of the cosy inn.

Clara brushed her silky hair behind her ears. 'Half a glass of Chardonnay.'

'Right you are,' the landlady nodded.

'Aye, 'cause you couldn't hold anythin' more. Pint-size,' the beardy stranger beside her drawled with an accent so comfortingly coarse that her sundered soul ached.

'Sorry?' she replied with indignation, burying the past once more.

'Ignore him,' Aylish said as she plopped down on her other side. 'Jeremy's always trying to get a drinking match out of anyone. Everybody ignores him.'

'Because they know they can't win,' Jeremy laughed. 'Just like your wee little friend here!'

'Oh, it's on like nineteen seventy three,' Clara retorted, ever the competitive game-player. Plus she was sick of his disparaging comments, and he used redundant words.

'What happened in nineteen seventy three?' Helen asked.

'AC/DC formed?' Aylish hazarded and Clara nonchalantly offered her a fist-bump.

The Time Lady turned back to Jeremy with an impish grin. 'What are you drinking?'

...

Some time later...

The landlady slid another round of Black Wych across the bar to the drinking couple. Aylish watched the unfazed Time Lady with amazement, as did the gathering crowed. Clara eyed the dark stout with a stoic sort of determination and the Osgood twins were more convinced than ever of their mistake.

'Thish one will–hic!–sheperate the men- men, from the women–hic!' Jeremy slurred as he wobbled atop his stool and grabbed his pint glass.

Leaning back, he began to glug, and Clara tipped her glass too–gazing wide-eyed at the timber ceiling. The main difference between the two drinkers–beside fundamental biology and personality type–was that he didn't stop leaning back until the crowed caught him and sent him forward.

'I dare say you were right,' Clara snarked as she put her empty glass back down on the bar while Jeremy slumped across it. The crowed cheered, laughed, clapped and quickly went back to prior commitments.

Aylish took the measure of the girl with a long gaze of astonishment that went from head to foot and back again. 'But... where did it all go?'

The landlady was interested too, but a paying local asked for a 'swift-half and a packet of scratchings'.

'The Time Lord physiology I was gifted with means I can't get drunk, at least on the booze around here. My metabolism and tolerances are too high now,' Clara quietly explained without a hint of inebriation.

'So, you cheated then?'

'No!' Clara retorted in defence. 'I'm just so much better at it than he is.' She nodded to her fallen opponent and he began to snore.

'You said you were gifted...'

'Yes,' Clara said as she mused over the blank television screen. 'I was as human as you at one time.'

'So you weren't lying when you said you came from Blackpool?'

Clara shook her head.

'What happened?'

'A long, long story,' the Time Lady tiredly admitted, 'and not for tonight.'

Aylish could see her discomfort and so didn't press.

'Your going to university?' Clara enquired to stop the encroaching silence.

'Yes,' Aylish said happily. 'In the autumn. I'd love to work for the forestry commission so I'm off to do Dendrology. I work here, but dad travels for business now and again and he's been in America for a week so I've had it off to look after Darcy. That's it for me pretty much...' She didn't know why she'd continued. The visiting Time Lady seemed so genuinely interested though, and she'd already told her more than she'd obviously liked. 'Mum... died, when Darcy arrived,' she sighed, subconsciously twiddling a beautiful Celtic ring on her right-middle finger, 'and... I guess Keldray just made things easier... Worthwhile...'

Her eyes flickered to the Time Lady's, where she discovered sadness and an empathy that was painted with pure truth. Clara reached out to put a comforting hand on hers, the radio went to static, and a scream filled the air.


	3. The Last Empath

Part 3: Last of the Empaths

Both girls spun towards the front of the pub where a bear had materialised and instantly taken to attacking one of the UNIT troops. The rest drew their firearms when they were jumped by a cadre of goblins, several patrons were accosted by more of the shambling corpses–or draugr, as Clara identified by their Norse armour–and there, calmly stood amidst the breaking chaos, was a creature straight from the depths of hell.

Aylish did not know why–considering the host of other monsters on display–but the very sight of this fiend with its towering bulk, leathery skin and horrific horns rekindled a terror that had lain asleep within her since a time before she could remember–a fear that it could sense.

Wanting to be brave, she stifled her own scream as it charged her with powerful, outstretched hands, the light glinting from wicked claws and blue/purple skin.

Her horror grew to freezing levels and the rest of the beasts vanished as randomly as they had appeared, leaving only her demon. In the last second she had left she wanted to be strong, to always be there for her sister, but every muscle seized and she knew this was it–her clock was about to stop.

A razor hand came down for the kill, but the nightmare-spawned cur recoiled as a magnificent blue light filled her eyes and a dawn-greeting warble pierced her ears.

'Get away from her!' Clara growled, face fair even in fury as she drove the crackling projection into self enforced oblivion with sonic screwdriver.

The instant the apparition winked out of existence the Time Lady turned back, grabbed Aylish by her pale, shivering hand, and yelled for her to, ' _RUN!_ '

* * *

'Duck!' Clara cried as they crashed through the back door.

The creature's claws found empty air then dry stone wall. They screeched, sparked, scored, then vanished from the diagnostic flourish of a certain second-of-its-kind screwdriver.

Past the unusually new-looking VW 'hippy van', they headed across the car park toward a fourth-hand news van.

'Why don't we-' Aylish gestured to the camper.

'C'mon!' the Time Lady urged and led her on.

Clara stopped short before the 'stations' side door as short lived talons sliced the air an inch from her tummy–one more heartbeat and she'd have been one regeneration down... one life closer to...

She puffed with relief as she threw the door open and pushed her charge inside.

'Aylish!' Jake greeted through the sound of music and static and clicking of dials. The beardy, lanky, beanie wearing DJ had clearly been working hard to get back on air, but before he could ask who her friend was, Aylish threw her arms around him as if she were trying her best to wind him.

'Jake, this is Clara,' Aylish said with pride. 'Clara, this is my boyfriend, Ja-'

'Not a social visit,' she interrupted as she shimmied past them, pushed his chair aside and took to the equipment with her screwdriver.

'Whoa, what'ya doin'?' Jake protested.

'Something clever,' Clara replied–and hoped–as she clamped a small, round and very alien device to the transmitter controls.

An instant later the creature bellowed as it materialised at the front of the cabin. Both humans screamed, but Clara gave it her best 'now you're in for it' face–which she'd given some practice–and flourished her trusty sonic one last time.

Just like the rest, it was gone in an instant.

'How did you–' Jake started in amazement, but quickly noticed the instruments and forgot all else. 'Hey, we're back on air! And better than ever!'

'To the Tardis,' Clara said to Aylish in a no-nonsense tone and nodded in the general direction they needed to go.

'Err, bye, Jake,' Aylish said as her guardian pushed the door open.

'Yeah, sure,' Jake replied distractedly, browsing through playlists.

Clara didn't want to comment and neither could she give the best advice on relationships as they trudged over to the camper.

'What did you do, exactly?' Aylish asked as they stopped outside it.

'Whoever's behind all this is using basic radio transmissions to avoid detection by those looking for alien activity,' the Teacher explained.

'Why they're using a Zero thing,' Aylish said.

'Exactly. I boosted and widened Jake's transmission to block theirs and force their hand. Now, if they want to get what they're after they'll have to use a burst so powerful that anybody with a big enough detector–like me, for example–will-'

'Clara?!' the Osgood twins called as they stepped out of the backdoor.

'Not now. I'm on a roll!' she retorted.

A quartet of roars answered as a cabal of the hideously snarling creatures appeared around them.

'Will locate them in an instant!' the young Time Lady hurried with a mischievous grin and activated the device she'd installed on the transmitter before leading Aylish aboard her home from anywhere.

* * *

'So the Tardis is getting the data directly from the van, which is now acting as a senor array,' Clara revealed in her own self-assured way as she dashed around the console, pressing keys and toggling stuff. 'Cool, right?'

She looked up to find Aylish still stood by the doors. The Lass' shadowy eyes were loaded with judgement and her very demeanour was absent of the joy that the Time Lady was admittedly fond of.

'I was bait. Wasn't I?'

Clara pulled the lever and the Tardis rasped as it split the firmament.

'That's why you had to do all of this.'

'As soon as I was sure they were seeking you I couldn't let you in the Tardis,' Clara flatly confessed. 'I'm sorry. They'd have lost you and I needed to find them. I'm not about to let them harm you though. I'm not about to let them win.'

'What about those who've died?' Aylish argued, pointing behind herself.

'You can't save everyone,' Clara said with a quiet despair that spoke of cold, hard experience. 'Not all the time...'

Aylish meekly conceded that much and approached the console. 'Why me though?' She asked softly and gripped the edge, causing the ship to purr like a kitten. 'Why in all of reality are you trying to help me?'

The Time Lady looked at her quite thoughtfully from across the bank and made her decision.

'Once in a rare while, someone is born as something called an empath,' she began. 'An empath is-'

'I'm a mod on a Marvel forum,' Aylish pointedly stated. 'Pretty sure I know what an empath is.'

'Ok... Point taken...' Clara duly noted. 'Anyway. You're a nature empath.' Nice and fast–plaster off.

Aylish's first thought was that it explained so much, the second was that it was freaking awesome, and the third was, 'That's why they're after me.'

'Probably.'

'Why didn't Keldray tell me?'

'I think he wanted to shield you from this sort of thing. I think he wanted you to have a normal life,' Clara said apologetically.

Aylish allowed an ironic smile. 'Little chance of that after mum...' She couldn't finish somehow.

'And...' the Time Lady added with a gulp. 'I help because you need it–because you remind me of this lost young woman I once knew who was having trouble with her internet...'

It was certainly an odd comment, but from what she knew of this strange, enigmatic, and beautiful creature, Aylish assumed it was probably some self-reference.

Clara must have got the message from her grateful gaze as she looked away and pushed the lever forward with grim business written across her face.

'Here we go. The villain's secret volcano base,' she announced. 'Which, I must add, hasn't happened yet. I suppose I can't talk you into staying in the Tardis?'

'Not on your life!'

'Thought so. I'll be back in a moment,' Clara said before padding down to the lower level and out through a side door. When she returned she found her 'not-a-companion-honest' admiring the motorcycle set to one side of the entry gantry.

'It was a gift,' she said.

'It's gorgeous,' Aylish cooed as if it were a baby.

Clara presented her with a bracelet that looked just as alien as the device she'd used in the news van, but of such a radically different aesthetic to suggest an entirely removed civilization. 'Put this on.'

'What does it do?' the lass enquired as she fastened it around her thin wrist.

'It will block any further enemy attacks,' Clara explained and Aylish was strangely touched by the untold sentiment.

Clara smiled up at her with the joy of the thrill as they stood before the double door and Aylish reciprocated the feeling–her whole system afire with adrenaline.

'You ready?' the curious traveller asked.

Aylish nodded.

'Let's finish this then,' Clara said, her smile becoming a grin, and they walked out toward whatever Aylish's timeline had in store.

* * *

Shilya's keep looked even eerier by the light of a full moon. Aylish hated this place during the waking hours and never in all her days would she have dreamed of visiting by night, but there she stood, right in its front garden. The diner lights set the low, swirling mists aglow, while earth's faithful companion shimmered across the silvery surface of Wanderer's Tarn beside the accursed pile.

'A light,' Clara whispered and pointed to the sign of habitation emanating from the rear-most turret.

'That's the Lost Tower,' the local added. 'Nobody's been able to find a way up since the National Trust moved in.'

'C'mon,' Clara directed and nodded to the main entrance.

'I really hate this place...' Aylish affirmed.

* * *

'You don't like UNIT, do you?' Aylish observed. 'Ooo, it's dark!'

'No. I like them well enough,' Clara replied as she rummaged through her jacket pockets. 'They'd only slow me down though, and I don't think overly enthusiastic people running around with guns would improve things...' She produced a white orb about the size of a cricket ball. A half-twist and it illuminated her with a comforting, hearth-like glow. 'Plus, I sort of died last year and don't want to talk about it,' the Time Lady casually added as a second half-turn brought the orb's light to dazzling levels.

'What?!' Aylish remarked, but Clara just ignored her and flung the white-bright sphere up above her head–where it hung, static, casting every nook and cranny of the epoch-worn stones in shadow.

It continued to float after the girl as they left the reception area and cheerful little gift shop.

'Where we checking first?' Aylish enquired.

'Dungeons, libraries, tapestries,' Clara answered, 'all the cliché places first.'

'There is a library,' Aylish chirped. 'Below the tower. It's the creepiest part of the castle.'

'Even better,' Clara said with a praising tone and smile.

Aylish then took the lead, showing the way down one dusty, armour-lined passage after another with unerring accuracy. Spiders watched the two unusual tourists pass below from their wispy abodes, and at one point they crossed a suspected haunted courtyard.

'That's weird,' the lass commented and stopped before the ancient archway to the library. It was adorned with a multitude of equally ancient raven and angel motifs that set a chill to Clara's blood. There was a passage of text also, which Aylish's fingers now gently explored. 'This used to be in Gaelic,' she clarified, 'but I can read it now...'

'That's the Tardis translating for you,' Clara revealed.

'' _The first step,_ '' Aylish read aloud, her accent a dramatic benefit. '' _Hark, the once and future queen, hand taken by a lowly journeyman mage._ ''

They both looked at each other with the severest of suspicion, then grinned with amusement.

'I hate prophesies,' Clara grumbled in a 'I'm on the record' way.

'Anything?' Aylish asked as they entered the library which, to Clara's joy, was further decorated by angels and ravens in varying poses.

She gave a sweep with her screwdriver. 'Yes! Perception filter!'

They followed it straight to a perfectly normal grandfather clock between two bookcases. 'Don't think this is it,' Aylish complained in abject defeat.

'Which is how it works,' the Teacher pleasantly imparted as she altered the output of the sonic to reveal a door where the clock whence was.

'Get back,' Clara sternly instructed as she foiled the lock, grabbed the handle and gestured to the side of the door where she wanted her to stand. With one fluid motion the Time Lady then pulled the door open and flattened against the bookshelf across the way from Aylish.

'Now what?' Aylish asked when nothing happened.

Clara reached into her pocket to retrieve a long, ornate, and very Victorian umbrella. 'Always be prepared for any eventuality!'

She gingerly held it out in front of the door, there was a lightening crack of red energy and the umbrella combusted in a shower of sparks.

'Aww...' the impossible girl carped as she scrutinised the smouldering handle.

Thinking on her feet, she peered around the corner with her compact mirror and steeled herself, breathing steady as she considered the length of the passage, her height, light level, everything she knew about a Mk V Photonic Floor-filler and how long it took to react to the umbrella. She then stepped into the doorway and 1.8 seconds later the turret was a sizzling heap of semi-molten scrap and silicates.

Clara pocketed the mirror and stepped forward. 'Nothing personal, but you did just kill my um-' She yelped as the floor under her feet gave way and she was plummeting, plummeting.

The fall came to a shorter halt than usual as something snagged her jacket collar and Aylish huffed loudly. Clara looked up at the lass from the arms of Charon and grinned manically.

She was whooping and laughing as she climbed out moments later. Aylish on the other hand looked like she was going to throw up when she slugged the Time Lady in the arm.

'Ow, hey!'

'You think that was funny?!' Aylish flipped, also showing a side that the other had not seen. 'You could have died!'

'Already been there,' Clara panted.

'Immortal travelling genius or not, it isn't funny and it isn't a game,' Aylish countered, close to tears. 'What about the people who need you or care about you? There are people who care about you?' She couldn't even begin to imagine a life worth living otherwise.

A snapshot of memory and Clara's expression darkened. 'You're right. I'm sorry. And... I'm far from immortal...' She looked at the narrow pitfall in their way. 'We can jump that...'

'Easy,' Aylish retorted, trying to be as brave as she thought her company was.

Clara turned to her with a sudden, slightly chuffed expression. 'Genius... Really?'

* * *

The villain of our stage-setting tale was waiting when they entered the spacious turret chamber. He gave a lazy smile, unfazed and dastardly handsome, a force field standing between them and his stacks of jumbled hardware.

'I have to say that you impress me–for a dead woman,' he purred by way of greeting as he rose from his sturdy desk chair and strolled, slowly, to the pulsing window between them. 'Well played, Ms Oswald.'

'Glad I don't disappoint,' she said, digging her hands into her pockets while Aylish watched the exchange like a tennis match.

'Agent Jacob Chase,' he introduced with genteel charm and flashed his Time Agent badge. As tall as Aylish and possessing similar, thin-yet-good-looking features, his striking presence was completed with jet-black hair and piercing blue eyes.

'Stealing emotions. Why?' Clara demanded, folding her arms with her sonic up her sleeve. She had precious little patience left for his shenanigans.

'To destroy the Cybermen,' he declared with righteous conviction and paced over to one of the arrowslit windows positioned around his base of operations. 'We're at war again.'

Aylish got a shot of goose bumps.

'There's always a war with the Cybermen,' the Time Lady retorted. 'When did it ever warrant torturing people? Stealing a part of them? Scaring them to death?'

'When we started to lose!' Jacob snapped and turned on her with those icy pits of blue. 'When the E-Bomb became our last effective weapon...' he then calmly and eloquently followed as he began to prowl before the barrier like a jaguar at the zoo. 'It is unfortunate that fear to the point of death–that last, desperate outburst–is the most potent. It is equally unfortunate that primal, genetically inherited fear is the most insurmountable–you may have noticed the ancient and often mythical manifestations that make for quite an intriguing experience. The fact remains however that those chosen are dying for the good of their race, and therefore die a worthwhile death. If any knew the truth, then they should feel privileged.'

Aylish looked just as ill as Clara. 'When did you become one?' she timidly piped as disgust and indignation overcame the fear of confronting the monster.

'What?' he all but hissed while Clara faintly shook her head, trying to get the lass to stop.

'A Cyberman,' she said, bolder than before. 'You sound like one.'

'You ignorant little retch,' Chase quickly and venomously bit as she received his full, vindictive attention. 'DON'T YOU EVER COMPARE ME TO ONE OF THOSE- THOSE!'

The barrier fell as a shrill wail filled the air and Clara made for the stash of tech, but halted a few feet short when a laser bolt scorched the stone ahead of her feet.

Agent Chase waved her back toward the door with his smoking pistol while his temper sunk back beneath cold professionalism. 'You really think I'd be that easy?' he asked, a little offended as Aylish watched the battle of wills begin within the shared stare of the two time travellers.

'We made it to your man cave,' Clara quipped without blinking.

'And little good it will do you,' Chase replied. He gestured grandly to his abomination of machinery. 'It's all deadlocked. Quite safe from the likes of you.'

Aylish noticed the glint of a challenge accepted in the Time Lady's eyes.

'We appear to have a bit of a situation then,' Clara added, tilting her head to one side. 'Don't we? Because my girl here has a bracelet that blocks your machine,' Aylish flashed it with a defiant air about her, 'and it's deadlocked so only she can take it off.'

Frustration coloured Chase's gaze, which he buried with a self-assuredness that was very familiar to Aylish.

'So,' Clara continued with perky insolence, 'while we waste time waiting to see which of us will be the first to do something spectacularly stupid, why don't you explain why you're targeting my friend?'

Aylish looked quickly to Clara, then back to the man with the gun. She'd called her 'her friend'...

'Fair enough,' Chase shrugged with a sly little smile. 'If it will let you both rest easy once you're dead.

'Early in their research, the government discovered that no subject was quite as effective as an empath. Which, you are, by the way,' he added as an aside to Aylish.

She just waved her hand, almost regally, as if to say, 'get on with it.'

'Where it might take one hundred or more normal subjects to distil a device, it only required a single empath,' Chase explained. 'Empaths being exceptionally rare and often clinging to the fringes of notable history, they put the task of locating and harvesting these creatures to the Time Agency. Hence, me,' he gestured grandly to himself. 'And you have given me the run-around, Ms Bruce. You truly have. It is normally quite simple to lock on to the target in any given time zone, and 'zap'. But you happen to live in a corner of reality with a painful amount of interference where my instruments are concerned–even landing here got a bit iffy–so random sampling of the population was required. Then, just as I was closing in on you, this annoyance drops out of nowhere...' The agent waved his pistol at Clara, who pouted almost comically.

The agent started creeping back to his command console, gun trained on the Time Lady at all times. 'If it's any consolation Ms Bruce, you're the last of your kind in history,' he continued as he started to press buttons that Clara desperately wanted to see. 'There will be no more death after yours, and I'll try to make it quick.'

'Oh, wow. That does make me feel better,' Aylish replied with bile.

'As for you,' Chase said, wiggling the gun at the interfering traveller. 'The stupid mistake is all yours for ever coming here. Thank you for providing the solution to my problem...'

He hit a final command with a heavy stab of his finger and Clara instantly felt a change. Something in the air? No... _in her_...

'Fascinating physiology,' he said with admiration as he peered at the screen and switched aim to Aylish. 'You'll find that my Still is a very adaptable piece of engineering though.'

'Don't do it...' Clara started, reaching forward, eyes wide with absolute terror as the colour drained from her. 'You don't know what you're-'

She fell silent as he turned the output up to full with a hideous grin. 'Now let's see what you fear most, Ms Oswald...'


	4. To Heal Its Own'

Part 4: '...To Heal Its Own...' 

Where she was and how she had got there, Clara did not know.

A bleak and tempestuous sky loomed above while the cracked and ivy-draped bones of a once great cathedral stood all around. Inexorably drawn to where the alter once would have stood, she carried on alone. A ghost drifting through the ruins.

The wind howled in lament and lightening crackled as she climbed the steps and discovered a low stone pillar at the centre of the Apse. Feeling she should, Clara drew near and began to read the eons-old text engraved across its face.

 ** _'In eternal memory of...'_**

The Time Lady's gasp choked on the shock that had birthed it. Her knees trembled as a lifetime of memories hit her and the very foundation of her meaning crumbled. Beneath a name that mattered, but didn't, and a pithy sentiment that could never justifiably encapsulate all she knew, there were written the simple, shattering words:

 ** _'Survived by his most beloved Clara.'_**

'No...' she squeaked, for that is all that she could manage as her legs gave way and all reason fractured.

Off in the distance, twin sets of bells peeled, their doom-laden herald echoing off of each other.

'No,' she repeated, quavering as her hearts broke and a century of repression gave way. 'Don't leave me behind. Please...'

* * *

The Tardis refused to translate what was upon that stone, but Aylish knew when she was watching somebody's world come to an end. She watched from off-stage of the half-real scene as Clara quietly wept, her tears pooling on the cold stone beneath her huddled form, and even though scant seconds had past, she couldn't take any more.

'Stop it! Stop it!' the waif-like lass cried and flung herself at the monster beside her.

He knocked her aside with little effort. 'You know what to do! Or do I need to turn the Still on your sister too?'

Aylish went for the bracelet without thinking while Chase turned to monitor his hellish machine. 'Forgive me,' she whispered and attempted to remove the Time Lady's safeguard... but couldn't.

'Maybe it's you're lucky day after all!' the agent recanted with glee as he watched digital needles rise and turned the 'inflow' to full. 'I don't know what she is, but this babe's kicking out some serious juice! I couldn't make a score like this off five of you!'

Aylish turned back to the inconsolable victim with tears running down her own cheeks as she realised what the Time Lady had done for her.

She flinched as the face of a unit exploded and Chase reflexively covered his head. He didn't bother as the second dial blew, or the third–panic overcoming instinct. 'No!' he yelled and tried to lower the flow. 'NO!' A fourth blew–the current too strong, and wild, and furious, and distraught. The e-batteries went next and the agent battered the flames that gushed from the console with all the abandon of a madman.

Neither had noticed that the other half of the room was now plain old turret space, but as Clara began to stir, she caught her friend's attention. With slow deliberateness, the impossible girl looked up at the man who would destroy her, and in the dark depths of her red-rimmed eyes, Aylish saw such terrible, silent fury, that it brought to mind something that had always been. A stray notion of no origin that seemed to have slipped in from a time before she was.

 _'The Hybrid..._ ' a voice not her own chuckled within the deepest recesses of thought. ' _...Will break a billion billion hearts to heal its own..._ '

'YOU!' Chase howled bitterly and turned as Clara was struggling to her feet. 'WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!'

'I never said that doing something stupid was a mistake,' she rasped and thrust out her screwdriver as he flourished his pistol.

He growled and hammered the defective weapon while she changed the settings on her trusty device. As an admittance of defeat, he reached for his vortex manipulator, but the Time Lady was again the quicker and it spat sparks while her screwdriver sang happily. Tweak and hit, it did not matter: the device was dead.

Agent Chase looked up with rage at his meddling enemy, just in time to see the small, clenched fist hurtling toward him.

* * *

Two girls stood atop the castle steps, watching the milling of the military. One was mystifyingly sullen while the other was filled with the child-like glee of balance restored. Both were unusual.

'You ok now?' Aylish asked as she sheepishly prodded the Time Lady's arm.

'Yeah,' Clara said with a slight smile, but she looked ever so tired.

Below them an agent out of time, head bowed and broken in defeat, was shoved roughly into the back of a truck by a pair of equally rough looking troops.

'Why'd you hand him over to UNIT?' the lass asked, Clara having given the impression that UNIT were about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

'Because it's a kindness,' the Time Lady said darkly.

They listened to the chatter and orders. An owl hooted in the forests below, unperturbed.

'I know what you did,' Aylish said and offered her wrist to the traveller.

'What did I do?' Clara replied, a little brighter than before as she removed the bracelet.

The lass gave her a look of gratitude that words could not deliver, and turned to the approaching twins.

'It is you, isn't it?' one of them asked.

'Yes,' Clara sighed. 'It's me...'

'But, Trap Street,' the other remarked while passing the inhaler to the first. 'That must have been some clever trick then. We-'

'I never left,' Clara confirmed and the first Osgood froze mid-breath. The thrice dead girl peered thoughtfully at the smudgy horizon, eyes still raw. 'And there weren't any clever tricks. They'd run out.'

* * *

There is a certain subterranean cavern that is mostly empty and nearly always lonely, but if you visit it at just the right time you might find an American diner with the friendliest service around and a tall tail or two if they think you can handle it. This was one of those times...

Clara sat at the bar alone, sampling the always-local strawberry milkshake. It was good, the best, even. 'Don't Tell Me That It's Over' by Amy MacDonald played on the indieGlasgow station–a good sign that everything was getting back to normal in Port Gloam.

She looked up at the cavern beyond as she jabbed the straw absently at the ice cream floating about in the bottom of the glass. Aylish was hugging Keldray and neither were saying much. She was only happy to let them have a private farewell, and she was glad that she too had had such time to let go all those years before.

The wound that Chase had inflicted earlier that night suddenly flared, sharp and ragged. Stifling fresh lachrymosity, she returned to her milkshake and the music that the extremely chill, extremely early-morning DJ was playing. Maybe she could finally move on to Victorian London once all of this was over?

At one point a fluorescent light flickered–really? Why? And Clara looked up at just the right moment to catch the dragon pointing at her with one of his huge talons. Aylish turned to look at her with puzzlement and the Time Lady waved casually.

'Yes,' Clara had previously said to the dragon.

She stepped out of the glass finished door as they approached. Keldray looked even sicklier than before and Aylish smiled, but her demeanour as a whole told an entirely different story.

'Are you guys ready?' she asked.

The dragon and the lass looked at each other for a long moment and Aylish quickly shook her head. 'We are,' he said, regardless.

'But, will I ever see you again?' Aylish asked and clung to his arm.

'I have no doubt that our paths are supposed to cross again my child,' he purred and pushed her away with the gentle curve of his claw. 'Now run along and live dreams of your own without this old man to slow you down...'

She nodded, once, and stepped back.

'I'll meet you back at the Ring and Sword,' Clara confirmed.

'Kay,' Aylish replied and reluctantly turned away. She couldn't watch as the engines sounded and a precious part of her life faded away, but upon reaching the threshold she looked out over the now empty cavern for what felt like the final time.

* * *

Jeremy was still snoring as Aylish wiped around him. The bar top wasn't going to get any cleaner, but she just didn't know what to do–she'd swept the glass, dumped the broken furniture out back, and UNIT were dealing with everything else (including persuading the Police to drop the case).

The TV was back on with the news channel covering a spate of disappearances in Edinburgh, and absolutely nothing on the strange happenings in their own town. The Osgood twins at least seemed interested–which was a nice change from them staring at her in a humanly inappropriate way.

Over the drone of the irritatingly emotionless newsreader, a comfortingly familiar wheezing heralded the return of the Time Lady and she perked up–as did the twins.

Clara stole in from the rear and offered a smile to Aylish, who waved uncertainly while the Osgoods rose from their stools in unison. The traveller seemed to know what they wanted as she graciously accepted the folded note they had to offer her and ignored the girl behind the bar in order to skim over its contents.

'With my mother?' she whispered and one of the two advisors nodded solemnly.

'It's on the certificate as Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome,' the other tactfully added. 'That's the closest match we could make.'

'Thank you,' Clara replied with a melancholy sort of gratitude and placed her hands on their shoulders. 'Osgood. Bonny. Whichever either of you are.'

The traveller turned back to the bar and leaned on the ridiculously shiny surface with folded arms. 'So...'

Aylish retrieved her vibrating mobile from her left jeans pocket and scrutinised the alert as she started to walk over. Suddenly, she stopped, and Clara knew that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

'We leave this story to bring breaking news,' the newsreader chimed grimly. 'A passenger plane carrying over five hundred and twenty four people onboard has disappeared over the Atlantic on it's way to Glasgow International Airport...'

The phone hit the floor, its screen shattering on impact.

Eternal seconds passed as the reader rambled on in the periphery of noise and the two girls stared at each other. The sharp edge of reality then came roaring through numb shock and Aylish blinked while the back of her neck prickled.

There was confusion in that place too–a place not visited in over seven years. Why was her Time Lady so sad? Why was there such indescribably apology in her eyes?

As if she could sense her thoughts, Clara closed them as she turned and slipped away.

* * *

Clara's hand was trembling, but she somehow managed to get the key in the Yale Lock. The Time Lady pushed the camper door open, revealing the eldritch space beyond and waited until Aylish plucked up the courage to ask, 'You're going to save my dad, aren't you?'

To see such hope melt away and devastation be left in it's place as the words, 'The Universe doesn't work like that...' left her lips? Every fibre of the Time Lady's being shuddered with hate–hate that she'd felt before on the edge of a fiery precipice.

'By going back to save him we would be preventing the very reason we went back,' Clara continued, trying not to sound as dull and cold as the rules so often seemed. 'I'm sorry,' she added, 'but we could destroy everything. Some things can't be changed. I know, I've been there.'

She put her arm on Aylish's, unsure of what else she could do.

The lass was quiet for uncomfortable moments as she clearly tried to fight back the tears and piece everything together.

'Can me and Darcy come with you then?' she whispered with all sincerity as her eyes met the Time Lady's once again. 'I... We don't have anything left here.'

Clara so achingly, desperately wanted to say, 'Yes! Of course you can! My home will be yours until you find a place where you belong...' but the rule of her 'better judgement' forbade it, and there was a betrayed glint of cunning in Aylish's gaze that was all too familiar...

'' _Do I have your attention?_ '' Clara had asked so long ago, the words ringing through her memory. She could still feel the warmth of the key between her fingers. Hated herself for it. Wanted to give them all back, but... '' _You will never step inside your Tardis again!_ ''

The Time Lady recoiled as the line between good and rational intentions blurred. 'I don't take people with me, either,' she replied sharply and slammed the Tardis door shut in Aylish's face.

Aylish stepped back as the fires of disbelief ignited within her. 'So that's it is it?!' she yelled at the ship as it began to groan and fade. 'You're just going to run away?! Leave me like everybody else does?! You promised, Clara! You promised Keldray and you promised me! LIAR!'

Then the ship was gone and she was alone with her grief...

* * *

Clara steadied herself against the console as if she might collapse without its aid. Why was she shivering? Why couldn't she stop shivering?

'' _This is my own fault,_ '' her mentor, the mad man with a box had admitted. '' _I like adventures as much as the next man, if the next man is a man who likes adventures. But even so, don't… don't go native._ ''

 _''What do you mean? I'm not,_ '' she'd defended at the time.

'' _Look. There's a whole dimension in here. But there's only room for one… me,_ '' the magician had then warned, followed by that sad, obvious truth that she'd realised much too late: '' _But I'm less breakable than you..._ ''

Where she'd gone she did not know and did not care. Far away, hopefully.

As a stifled sob rippled through her, she reached forward and struck a button on the console. Almost in immediate response to her silent outcry, a harsh Scottish voice–disembodied, but ever more real than the voice that persisted in her thoughts–filled the air around her, surrounding her, comforting her, embracing her.

' _If you are listening to this then it is because you doubt yourself, something you have done, or, perhaps, even something you will do. The life you chose so long ago is a difficult one–I should know, I've been living it a whole lot longer!–and with the weight of all that you now know its seems more than you can bare... So burn the rule book! Go on! Throw it out the door! But never,_ _ **ever**_ _stop following your hearts–_ _ **especially the one I trust in**_ _–and always remember who you are..._ _ **My Clara**_ _..._ '

The Tardis chirped uncomfortably, having detected something unusual, and as Clara gazed up at the monitor through bleary eyes–she always found it best to humour it when it wanted to show her something–the misery and loathing of dejection was swept away by profound interest.

* * *

Aylish stared at the wallpaper-peeling ceiling as a drunken round of Auld Lang Syne drifted up from the bar below and Darcy watched a DVD on a pokey little TV in the corner.

This was life now, these four walls. They'd lost the house–how does a student pay a mortgage? She had money now, but not that much–and university was out of the question if her little sister were to have a shred of stability. Her laptop had even gone and got itself a virus!

The lass let go a sigh. At least Helen had given them somewhere to stay, and maybe, just maybe, the next year would be better.

Her thoughts returned to the Time Lady–which seemed slightly appropriate given the time–and the life changing night she'd visited. It wasn't with malice–that had long since faded to indifference–as she clearly must have had a good reason for leaving like she did, but Aylish often found herself wondering what the lonely wanderer was up to.

Almost as if by summoning, a groaning, wheezing commotion filled the air while a strong breeze gathered up out of nowhere and a pulsing light danced across the walls.

Aylish sat up with a sudden jolt of excitement while Darcy stared with complete astonishment and a Police Box came into existence at the end of the bed.

Of everything she could have thought at that moment, the question most prevalent in the lass' mind was, ' _Why a Police Box?_ '

The door creaked as it opened and Clara leaned out, almost silhouetted by the radiance of the time rotor. 'You're father isn't dead,' she hurriedly stated without so much as a formal nicety. 'He's disappeared, and we _will_ find him...' The Time Lady then shot them both a grin and disappeared back inside.

Aylish and Darcy looked at each other for a moment in complete befuddlement, their lives changed yet again in the moment between heart beats.

'C'mon then. Pack a bag. I've got the kettle on...' Clara urged as she leaned out of the door again, completely ruining her entrance.

Next Time: Graduation Day

A special history lesson for Darcy, but the Sontarans are being disruptive. How many rules will Clara break to save time itself?


End file.
